Reclaiming
Yiddish and Yiddishkeit
Until I was 33
years old, I didn’t let myself recognize that I had grown up in a bilingual
home! In the 1950’s I wanted to
be like the other kids, like the ones I viewed in the movies and on television.
In my elementary school Christmas celebrations included memorizing the New
Testament story about Christ’s birth. To fit in, it was essential to speak
English, eat “normal” food, and be just like everyone else. Jewish kids in
non-Jewish neighborhoods were very aware of how different they were. So were
Greek kids, Italian kids, and kids of color, then called Negroes. Signs in
certain neighborhoods could legally say: NO DOGS, NO JEWS, NO NEGROES.
The times have changed but some things
haven’t. It is still true, that most young children are acutely aware, if their
background differs from the mainstream. As a third generation American kid I wanted to be
“normal;” I wanted to fit in.
So how did I finally allow myself this
realization? Fresh from radical college experiences, my husband and I were both
teaching high school in Southern California, when we discovered the loss that
came with rejecting our backgrounds. Paul was the advisor for La Raza, a club
of Mexican-American students, who were asserting a sense of their pride in
their culture. Paul told me how great it was for his students to celebrate
Cinquo de Mayo, and how rich a cultural background is.
We looked at each
other and felt shocked at how we could consider ourselves devoid of such a rich
heritage. While having blended ourselves into mainstream America; we were
avidly supporting the rights of others to honor their minority
backgrounds. We had somehow forgotten
our own!
I was teaching
English and Drama, when the English as a Second Language (ESL) program came
into effect. During a discussion with my colleagues about how lucky the
Spanish-speaking kids were to speak two languages, I had a vivid memory:
I was sitting in reading circle in my first grade
class. Someone’s grandmother was visiting our classroom and reading a story
aloud to us. I blurted out: I didn’t know grandmas speak English!
Laughter, especially from my teacher and our guest,
made me blush.
So sitting there
with my fellow teachers and at last comprehending how I’d pushed away from my
heritage I felt shame and blushed again
I was bilingual also! How could I have so distanced myself? The only grandmothers I saw and loved
in my childhood all spoke Yiddish or Yinglish. And there were plenty of them at
our weekly huge extended family visits.
When I was four,
Dad returned from the Navy. We moved out of Bubby and Zayde’s apartment in the
heavily Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, into our own little home in Bellwood,
Illinois thanks to the G.I. Bill. We lived in Bellwood, then Maywood, until I
was 15. I was always the only Jewish kid in my class, and one of the few at
Emerson Elementary School. All I
wanted was to be just like the other kids, even though I loved our holidays,
Hebrew school, our synagogue and customs; I wanted to keep it all separate from
my American life.
When I was nine,
my grandparents moved in with us after Zadye’s heart attack. I left home when I
was twenty in order to complete my last two years of college downstate. I had actually heard Yiddish throughout
my girlhood!
But I couldn’t
speak it. When I was a girl, I was
embarrassed of the sound; this discomfort continued, even when I was a young
woman. I felt shame about my rye bread sandwiches, and kosher hot dogs, which a
few of my gentile friends tasted, and then derided. I would watch friends wash down their cheeseburgers with
chocolate milk and feel sick, but I wished I could be like them. And their
grandmothers spoke English. I so wished mine wouldn’t be visible when friends
visited.
Now, everyone in
my parents’ generation is nearing the end of their lives*, and as the way of
life goes with them, so does the Yiddish language. I long for it. I find myself
thinking in Yiddish, speaking it to my stroke-damaged mother. I call her Mamele
(little mother) The further I get from my childhood the more I want connection
to it.
Yiddish is a tie,
along with the rituals and observances of my rich warm heritage replete with
weekly Shabbas observance. Mama and Bubby cleaned and cooked. I loved the
Friday nights that glow l in memory and in my own recreation of them:
Shabbas began
with the lighting of of candles, and to avoid using electricity, there was a
light in a crystal hurricane glass Bubby lit, to see her observance of Sabbath
to sunset on Saturday. There were Fridays full of delicious smells, baking
challah, steaming chicken soup, roasting briskets, and sweet wine
blessings. We awoke to chocolate
cake and milk for Saturday morning breakfasts.
I had long talks
with my family as we walked weekly to synagogue. We kids were delighted with each successive glow, as we
added to the Chanukah menorah each of eight nights. We sang songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, Danced the Horah and
the Sherileh (a conga type dance) at family occasions, We played with dozens of
cousins almost every weekend.
I see now how
blessed I was; to live with my immigrant grandparents; I had been given the opportunity
to inherently know two languages.
Studies now have shown that exposure to another language before a child
is five years old predisposes that child to learning any other foreign
language. That’s been true for me.
Yiddish is
flooding my tongue now. I use the language as if it were always mine. Oh yes,
it was; it is.
*Note: I wrote this before my mamele died June
1rst, 2009
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